Visit Notes: A Shared Log for Each Visit

Every visit has its own note log, shared between the office and the crew. Use it for anything that belongs to that one visit: “customer asked us to skip the back bed this week”, “sprinkler head broken by the driveway”, “bring the edger”. Each note shows who wrote it and when, and nothing anyone writes is silently overwritten.

For instructions that apply to every visit of a job, like a gate code or “dog in back yard”, pin a job note instead. Pinned notes show above every visit’s log, so nobody has to retype them.

Before you start

The visit must be on the schedule (see How to Schedule Appointments on the Calendar).
Any office user can read, add, edit, and delete visit notes. There are no extra permissions to set up.

Where visit notes live

All Appointments (Daily Dispatch > All Appointments): click View on a visit. The detail panel’s Visit Notes section holds the log.
Job Summary > Appointments tab: each visit row has a Notes cell (“Add note”, “1 note”, “3 notes”). Click it to open that visit’s log in a window.
Dispatch board: a small speech-bubble flag with a number appears on any visit card that has notes. It is a reminder only; open the visit to read or write.

Add a note to a visit

Open the visit’s log (see above).
Type in the Add note box. A note can be up to 2,000 characters; the counter shows how many you have used.
Click Save note. The note appears at the bottom of the log with your name and the time.

If the visit is today or later and has a crew assigned, the crew gets an alert on their phones: “New note on Tue 30 Sep visit to Smith”. Notes on past visits, and on visits with no crew, do not send an alert.

Repeating visits: each date has its own log

A weekly mowing visit is one repeating appointment on the calendar, but each week is its own visit with its own notes. A note you add to the 30 September visit shows on that visit only, never on 7 October. When you open a repeating visit from All Appointments or the job’s Appointments tab, you are always looking at that date’s log.

Edit or delete a note

Edit: click Edit under the note, change the text, and click Save. The note then shows “edited by (name), (time)”. Click History to see every earlier wording, who changed it, and when.
Delete: click Delete. A confirmation appears right in the log (“Delete this note?”). Click Delete note to remove it for everyone, or Keep to cancel.

Office users can edit or delete any note. Crew members can edit or delete only the notes they wrote.

Standing instructions: pin a job note

Open the job’s Job Summary and go to the Notes tab.
Click Pin next to the note (for example “Gate code 4411”).

The note is highlighted as Pinned, moves to the top of the job’s Notes tab, and shows above the log of every visit of the job, for the office and the crew. Click Unpin when it no longer applies. Only office users can pin notes. See Job Summary & Editing.

When a visit moves

You drag one visit to another day: its notes move with it. The same happens when you change the stop order on the Route page for a visit of a repeating appointment. Each moved note’s History shows who moved the visit and when.
You cancel a visit: its notes stay on the cancelled date. They are still listed on the job’s Notes tab, tagged with that date.
Several visits of the same repeating appointment move in one change: the notes stay on their original dates (listed on the job’s Notes tab), because the system cannot tell which note belongs to which moved visit.

What happens next

Notes save immediately and appear for everyone who opens the visit. Crew notes appear in the same log with the crew member’s name, so what happened on site reaches the office in the crew’s own words.

Troubleshooting

“Write a note before saving.”: the box is empty. Type something and save again.
“A note can be at most 2,000 characters.”: shorten the note, or split it into two.
“This note was changed after you last loaded it, so it cannot be deleted.”: someone edited the note after you opened the log. The log reloads with their wording; read it, then delete again if you still want to.
“This is a repeating visit. Pick the visit date the note is for.”: open the visit from a specific date (All Appointments or the job’s Appointments tab) rather than the repeating appointment as a whole.
A note is on the job’s Notes tab but not on any visit: it was written for a visit date that later moved or was cancelled, or it predates visit notes. It stays on the job so nothing is lost.